Officially known as the Rock Hill Print and Finishing Co., the cloth and textile factory closed in 1998, as similar businesses did once those jobs began filtering overseas.

The local economy suffered, but the city has endured. Plans to revitalize downtown, including The Bleachery, have been discussed. Rock Hill recently has been recognized four times as one of the nation’s 100 best communities for young people.

Now those chimneys, once symbols of bustling commerce, represent stability and strength.

Fittingly, this is where Johnathan Joseph, possibly the NFL’s finest free-agent acquisition who has provided plenty of both to a once-beleaguered Texans secondary, is from.

Here, he’s “J.J.” and not “J-Joe.” This is where, as a senior at Northwestern High, one of three high schools in a city of approximately 67,000, Joseph intercepted seven passes, returning four for touchdowns, and racked up 127 tackles en route to a state championship.

It’s a city once responsible for the production of many of the American flags in existence but now specializng in the exporting of football players. The lineage, which began before Joseph and continued last year with the nation’s top recruit, current South Carolina freshman defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, prompted the local newspaper, the Herald, to declare Rock Hill “Football City, South Carolina.”

“Rock Hill is a football town, just like anything you’d see in Oklahoma or Texas,” said William Cureton, a longtime assistant coach at Northwestern High. “Even when things aren’t going well, job-wise and health-wise, people still find a way to come out and support their teams.”

Family matters

It’s where Joseph’s parents, Vanessa and John, reside, as well as younger sister Johnika. On a recent Wednesday, all three — along with Johnika’s son — are gathered in the parents’ living room. Footage from Joseph’s April wedding plays on the flat-screen television above the fireplace. The scent of cornbread wafts through the air.

The home — three stories, newer construction, on the outskirts in a planned, fabricated neighborhood with one of those exclusive names — is nice, elegant. But it’s far from flashy. One would never guess an NFL star — and that’s what Joseph (5-11, 191 pounds) has been this season for the Texans — spends a lot of free time here. But Joseph does, as recently as last weekend during the week off.

Down the street, a teenager steps from behind a Range Rover to check the mail. He doesn’t bother to look around. It’s an unassuming city, which his family insists fits Joseph’s style. Oh, he likes his shiny bright things, as any 27-year-old who signed a five-year contract worth nearly $50 million with $12.5 million up front might.

“He’s never been a look-at-me person,” Vanessa said.

And who would know better than Mom? Hang around the city long enough and the locals tend to volunteer information about Joseph, mainly about how much of a good guy he is and how he was destined for stardom.

Vanessa saw none of that. Not that her son was bad, but he was a handful in grade school. He was disruptive, filled with so much energy that school administrators strongly recommended Ritalin. Incredulous, Joseph’s mother fought the prognosis.

“He’s just a boy,” she said over and over again, refusing to give in until a transfer to another school district was granted — the same district that allowed Joseph to flourish on the football field.

“Now you know why he couldn’t sit still — he has too much speed,” Johnika said.

That speed — Joseph was timed at a blistering 4.31 seconds in the 40 at the 2006 NFL combine — made him special, especially in this city.

All he had to do was flash a quick grin — “He’s a real shy-type dude who, if you notice, he just smiles a lot,” Cureton said — and that was all the ID, the cover he needed.

Football had become serious.

His father remembers Joseph injuring his thumb at Northwestern, blood spurting everywhere. A quick bandage was applied and Joseph resumed playing, hurtling himself with seemingly no cares. His father, who’d taken to telling his son to “make ’em eat grass,” wondered afterward why Joseph was being so reckless.

“He said, ‘Big hits, big bucks,’ ” John said.

The room explodes in laughs. This is the son and brother they know — quick-witted, sarcastic, protective (don’t dare look at his little sister) and loyal. He’s not perfect — an arrest in 2007 in Boone County, Ky., for marijuana possession while a member of the Cincinnati Bengals lingers, particularly around here — but they never assumed he was.

“He’s the last person I’d expect that from,” said Barry Byers, the Herald’s sports editor. “He said it was the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to him.”

Joseph served five hours of community service in the weight room at South Pointe, a 6-year-old football program led by Bobby Carroll, his former defensive coordinator at Northwestern. The barrel-chested Carroll looks and sounds as if he were born to coach football, but he laughed as he recalled how he labeled his defense “Purple Haze” because of the school’s colors, even taking to blaring Jimi Hendrix during film study.

“We knew he was special,” Carroll said.

No average Joseph

That seems to be the common narrative here in Joseph’s hometown, but Cureton, who describes himself as a father figure/older brother to Joseph, has a different recollection. Cureton didn’t see the star quality in Joseph until his senior season.

“There were probably guys more talented than him who came through Rock Hill,” Cureton said. “But I kept riding him. We wouldn’t let him settle for average.”

And now, there’s nothing average about Joseph.

If anything, he’s reliable and sturdy, not unlike a rock. Or any of the red bricks that compose the chimneys in the middle of his hometown, yet another symbol of Rock Hill’s permanence and fortitude.